Psychological research and resources made more accessible to public, scientists and practitioners

The Office of Publications and Databases announced a new public open-access journal and published a practitioners' pocket resource, ensuring important psychological information is readily available to all audiences.

Archives of Scientific Psychology, APA’s new open-methodology, open-data, open-access journal began accepting articles for publication in 2013. The Office of Publications and Databases (OPD) created the journal to provide high-quality, peer-reviewed research that is free and open to the public. As co-editors, Harris Cooper, PhD, and Gary R. VandenBos, PhD, incorporated features so that scientists and laypeople alike can find meaning and value in the published studies. Authors will provide both a methodology template — based on APA’s Journal Article Reporting Standards with detailed information on collected and analyzed data — as well as plain-language summaries of their findings. Authors are also required to deposit their data set to a central repository, enabling data sharing by other researchers to allow for re-analysis and/or new studies.

In February, OPD released “PsycEssentials: A Pocket Resource for Mental Health Practitioners,” by Janet L. Sonne, PhD. Available in print and mobile app formats, PsycEssentials gives practitioners easy access to comprehensive, fully vetted guidance on all aspects of clinical care. Chapters address the typical progression of therapy and describe a plethora of publicly available resources, such as standardized screening and clinical assessment and risk evaluations, state laws regarding child and elder abuse reporting, symptoms for mental health diagnoses, commonly prescribed drugs and resources for implementing evidence-based psychotherapies. Available for Android, iPhone and iPad, the app version of PsycEssentials can be read sequentially or browsed by specific topics. Features include live links to intake questions, evaluation measures, state laws and reporting regulations, sites for appropriate tests, favorites, term search, personalized notes and tables.